Just another observation about some of our other higher draft picks. It seems that we can pretty easily replace them with equal to better talent via low lever free agent pickups.

Overall I'm OK with where the team is heading (considering the losses and all), but at the same time our drafting scores for higher round picks is pretty damn scary bad for sometime now.

These are some of the types of reasons I think Pete ball is short lived here now. Pete needs a top 3 D to make his formula work because the offense will never be dynamic enough to compete with top NFL offenses around the league. It was nice to see Schotty using more mis direction and play action to help the pass rush, but IMO Russ is going to have to run some to make this continue to work and I don't see them allowing that. Add to that the amount of wear and tear that pounding the rock will take on our backs , and I have trouble seeing this holding up (close to 50 / 50 run pass)

Point of the thread? I don't see us sustaining success with Pete here given the continued poor drafting.

We may have a winning record, and possibly even playoffs, I just don't see us stepping up past that with Pete.

It doesn't help that the Seahawks are continually drafting at the end of the 1st round. Rams on the other end were drafting in the top 15. It's much easier to hit on guys when drafting that high.

The Seahawks have got some good nuggets in the draft too (1st/2nd rd), they got Earl Thomas, Bruce Irvin, Golden Tate, Frank Clark, Bobby Wagner, Jarran Reed, etc. All above average to great players.

The bigger issue is the trades that have been made - trading 1st for Harvin and Graham (player wasn't a fit in Seattle) respectively. Then 2nd rd pick for Richardson, etc. The Seahawks got very little in return for them.

hawkfan68 wrote:It doesn't help that the Seahawks are continually drafting at the end of the 1st round. Rams on the other end were drafting in the top 15. It's much easier to hit on guys when drafting that high. When the Seahawks did it, they got Earl Thomas, Bruce Irvin, Golden Tate, and Russell Okung. All above average to great players.

The bigger issue is the trades that have been made - trading 1st for Harvin and Graham (player wasn't a fit in Seattle) respectively. Then 2nd rd pick for Richardson, etc. The Seahawks got very little in return for them.

There is also another reasonable and debatable reason that could have been that way. Pete was far more familiar with the college talent just coming out of USC. After the 1st round the draft position means very little.

Our last three drafts have given us eight starters and eight solid rotational players. That's counting Ethan Pocic, Tedric Thompson, and David Moore amongst the rotationals, not the starters.

Our 2013-2015 drafts didn't approach that level. We got five starters out of those three drafts put together and...that's it. The rest didn't make it more than 18 months before getting cut. That's a far cry from 2016-2018.

It's not 2010-2012, no. But that draft trifecta was amongst the best in NFL history. We need more difference-makers, but expecting any team to pull off 2010-2012 consistently is something that not even the NFL's best teams do regularly. The Patriots don't.

MontanaHawk05 wrote:Our last three drafts have given us eight starters and eight solid rotational players. That's counting Ethan Pocic, Tedric Thompson, and David Moore amongst the rotationals, not the starters.

Our 2013-2015 drafts didn't approach that level. We got five starters out of those three drafts put together and...that's it. The rest didn't make it more than 18 months before getting cut. That's a far cry from 2016-2018.

It's not 2010-2012, no. But that draft trifecta was amongst the best in NFL history. We need more difference-makers, but expecting any team to pull off 2010-2012 consistently is something that not even the NFL's best teams do regularly. The Patriots don't.

I'd even say our 2013-2015 drafts weren't bad. Just our roster was loaded, so there was no place for a rookie to play. A bunch of those guys are starting on other teams.

I didn't like the Harvin and Graham trades, because I think we do much better when we trade down with our firsts and get three solid players instead.

I think the real point of this thread is we shouldn't ever draft in the first round, because our fans get so upset when they don't all turn into perennial All-Pros.

MontanaHawk05 wrote:Our last three drafts have given us eight starters and eight solid rotational players. That's counting Ethan Pocic, Tedric Thompson, and David Moore amongst the rotationals, not the starters.

Our 2013-2015 drafts didn't approach that level. We got five starters out of those three drafts put together and...that's it. The rest didn't make it more than 18 months before getting cut. That's a far cry from 2016-2018.

It's not 2010-2012, no. But that draft trifecta was amongst the best in NFL history. We need more difference-makers, but expecting any team to pull off 2010-2012 consistently is something that not even the NFL's best teams do regularly. The Patriots don't.

MontanaHawk05 wrote:Our last three drafts have given us eight starters and eight solid rotational players. That's counting Ethan Pocic, Tedric Thompson, and David Moore amongst the rotationals, not the starters.

Our 2013-2015 drafts didn't approach that level. We got five starters out of those three drafts put together and...that's it. The rest didn't make it more than 18 months before getting cut. That's a far cry from 2016-2018.

It's not 2010-2012, no. But that draft trifecta was amongst the best in NFL history. We need more difference-makers, but expecting any team to pull off 2010-2012 consistently is something that not even the NFL's best teams do regularly. The Patriots don't.

I don't mean at all to throw cold water on the quality of recent drafts because I think they have been pretty good, but if the preceding drafts were crap, it's not too hard to draft starters.

hawkfan68 wrote:The bigger issue is the trades that have been made - trading 1st for Harvin and Graham (player wasn't a fit in Seattle) respectively. Then 2nd rd pick for Richardson, etc. The Seahawks got very little in return for them.

This. So much this. Why JS started thinking trades were the way to go, I have no idea. The draft capital was bad, but I think the salary effects were worse. Harvin was just such a bad trade. The Richardson trade was bad too. Even if the Seahawks missed on the players they would have drafted with those picks, I still think they would have been better off than they were with the trade.

hawkfan68 wrote:The bigger issue is the trades that have been made - trading 1st for Harvin and Graham (player wasn't a fit in Seattle) respectively. Then 2nd rd pick for Richardson, etc. The Seahawks got very little in return for them.

This. So much this. Why JS started thinking trades were the way to go, I have no idea. The draft capital was bad, but I think the salary effects were worse. Harvin was just such a bad trade. The Richardson trade was bad too. Even if the Seahawks missed on the players they would have drafted with those picks, I still think they would have been better off than they were with the trade.

I don't have a real problem with the trades from the draft pick perspective. Obviously the Harvin trade was for damaged goods. And a cancer. I had the opportunity to attend the Broncos game in Denver and naturally SB48 was a topic. Something I found interesting was that Broncos fans generally felt like they were still in that game. At the end of the half, they moved the ball well. Had a pretty blatant non call on a Thomas DPI that would have put them in the red zone. Missed a wide open WR for a TD in that drive (ultimately they failed on 4th down to kill the drive). But at 22-0 down, they felt like they could still mount a comeback with a stop and the way they were driving the ball.

Fairly universally, they felt like the Harvin return basically killed their team. Whatever hopes they had died with that TD return. Obviously that's just fans and we kept scoring. But games can and do swing on momentum and that return was seen as the single biggest play of the game.

Despite that -- the salary issues on extending that malignant turd was the crucial sin. I consider the loss of Golden Tate to be part of that trade directly. A player that we never replaced and a guy who fit so perfectly what we wanted. Harvin was supposed to be a better Tate and he was anything but.

Seattle did pretty well with the Marshawn trade. We also had good luck with other trades too. Deion Branch for KJ Wright. Lawrence Jackson for Byron Maxwell. Tyler Polumbus for Trevor Guyton. Aaron Curry for JR Sweezy.

So there were successes leading up to that trade. Also consider the UFA additions leading up to that period -- not trades but taking other teams' players and paying them:

Zach MillerMichael BennettCliff Avril

And you could see that there was a lot of success culling from other teams' rosters.

The Richardson deal hasn't played out yet. I wouldn't have characterized that trade as a failure. I would however characterize not resigning him the failure. He was our best DL player by the end of the season. Not resigning him was the sin. Not the trade itself.

Sweezy was the only O-linemen to get destroyed (at least once) on Sunday. I think Pocic has improved to the point that he is better than Sweezy. This years Sweezy looks like last years Pocic. Hope he comes back soon.

seahawkfreak wrote:Sweezy was the only O-linemen to get destroyed (at least once) on Sunday. I think Pocic has improved to the point that he is better than Sweezy. This years Sweezy looks like last years Pocic. Hope he comes back soon.

IDK man, everyone has a rep like that against Donald, he's just too good. Pocic has been bad ever since he started to be honest, we just like to let him off the hook more than Ifedi.

Some of the poor draftiing is offset with guys like Tre Flowers and Carson two guys that are really playing well Tre in particular is playing great ball considering this is his first year and CB is not a forgiving position. I agree with you they have got to be better in round one . The poor drafting there has caught up with them .